“What if the messy in-between isn’t a place to rush through but the most important part of your journey?”
How to Trust the In-Between.
We don’t talk about the in-between enough. We glorify beginnings and endings—the shiny, triumphant moments where we can point and say,
“Look! I made it!”
But what about the murky middle? The time between the life you’ve outgrown and the one that hasn’t arrived yet? That space—the liminal space—is uncomfortable, raw, and often full of uncertainty. But it’s also where transformation quietly takes root.
I like to think of it as a magic place – the kind of place where wizards and the alchemists thrive. But for the rest of us, it often feels like we’re lost at sea.
I’m so sorry..“said my family doctor on the phone “..I can’t believe it, but you have cancer, and it is one that I haven’t heard of before, so I had to look it up. The bad news is that when they did the fine needle biopsy, you had a haemorrhage, and now the cancer cells are spreading all over your body. It is really terrible news.”March 2000
That phone call shattered every accumulated story of my life in an instant. This was my tantric flip. I immediately felt an intense, heightened awareness of the reality of all things. Everything was sharply in focus, yet with a depth of field, it was also oddly beautiful as I experienced calmly free-falling into a new land. I felt time slow down as I became painfully aware of the loneliness of the journey and then suddenly speed up with no possibility of returning. I was thrust into liminality—a space between survival and fear, between the person I was and the one I would have to become.
Liminality: The Chaos, The Becoming, and the Wardrobe Door
I step through the wardrobe, expecting Narnia—and instead, I find myself tangled in old overcoats, surrounded by the scent of mothballs and the muffled quiet of a forgotten world.
We crave the obvious magic—the lamp-post glow in the snow, the silver crown waiting on the other side. But reinvention rarely arrives with such clarity. Instead, it comes wrapped in ambiguity and discomfort—the unsettling middle where you’ve left the old behind but can’t quite see the new.
This is liminality: the space between worlds, where the story is half-formed, and you are half-unmade.
The Wardrobe Door: Crossing a Threshold That Can’t Be Uncrossed
In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Lucy doesn’t simply stumble upon Narnia—she crosses a threshold and steps into something that will change her forever. Once you open that door, you can’t return unchanged.
In life, liminal spaces look like this:
- After receiving life-changing news, but before you know what it means
- After becoming a parent, but before you feel like you know what you’re doing
- After letting go of a dream, but before you’ve found a new one
In these moments, the familiar dissolves, leaving you feeling more like purgatory than possibility. And yet—this is where transformation begins.
Why Liminality Feels Like Destruction
Every great story requires a death—the shedding of the old self.
In ancient rites of passage, the initiate is ritually marked—pierced, tattooed, or scarred—to signify that they can never return to who they were. Transformation always requires a kind of death.
- Neo must leave the illusion of the Matrix to become “The One.”
- Luke Skywalker must face the truth about Darth Vader to rise as a Jedi.
- Frodo Baggins must leave the Shire to discover who he truly is.
In our lives, destruction often looks like:
- The end of identities we’ve worn for too long.
- The realisation that the old ways of being no longer fit.
It feels like a loss but it’s also a clearing—a sacred dismantling to make room for something new.
Why Liminality Feels So Uncomfortable (and Why That’s a Good Thing)
Liminal spaces challenge our craving for clarity and control. We want to know. We want guarantees. But liminality offers neither.
Here’s the magic, though: the discomfort of the unknown is what makes it fertile ground for creativity and reinvention.
This isn’t a void—it’s a rich, wild space where the new version of you starts to take shape. But first, you have to be willing to stand still and listen.
Fear at the Threshold: Old Fear vs. Growth Fear
Fear shows up loudest in liminal spaces because it senses change. However, not all fear is a bad sign.
• Old Fear says: “Stay safe, stay small, stay the same.”
• Healthy Fear says: “This matters—pay close attention.”
Can you reframe fear?
Instead of seeing fear as a stop sign, try viewing it as a signal that you’re standing at the edge of something meaningful.
Journal Prompt:
“What if this fear isn’t telling me to stop, but asking me to slow down and notice?”
The Creative Edge: Where New Stories Begin
Most people don’t realise that the in-between isn’t just an empty waiting room. It’s where creativity thrives.
When the old ways of thinking no longer work and the new rules haven’t formed yet, you’re free to experiment. The pressure to “get it right” disappears, and you’re left with questions like:
• “What if I tried this?”
• “What if I didn’t have to know the ending to take the first step?”
Let yourself be playful and curious here. Creativity doesn’t need a perfect plan—it needs permission to explore.
The Universal Language of Liminality
Once I started paying attention, I realised that liminal spaces aren’t just moments in life—they’re everywhere. Nature, science, art, and even the physical spaces we inhabit all reflect this “in-between” state.
In every discipline, liminality is where change happens. It’s the threshold where one system meets another, and something new begins to emerge:
In Nature: The meeting point between land and sea teems with life—an ecosystem of wild possibility where adaptation and diversity thrive.
In Physics: Particles in quantum states exist in liminal suspension, holding unrealised potential until they collapse into one reality when observed.
In Systems Theory: Innovation happens at the edges, where structures dissolve and boundaries blur, creating space for new patterns and possibilities.
In Stories: The middle act is where characters aren’t just tested – they are reshaped, often losing themselves before discovering who they indeed are.
In Chemistry: Phase transitions – like ice melting into water – are moments when the old form dissolves, and the new form hasn’t fully emerged. It’s neither solid nor liquid. It’s becoming. The same applies to chemical reactions, where bonds break and reform, creating something entirely new from chaos.
In Architecture: Foyers, hallways, and bridges are liminal spaces that serve as transitions – designed to evoke movement, pause, or reflection before stepping into the next place.
Even the Mandelbrot set – a fractal of infinite complexity – reminds us that the richest patterns emerge at the edge of stability and chaos.
Liminality isn’t something we outgrow – it’s something we live through, over and over again. And while we may resist it, every edge holds the potential to create something entirely new.
Radical Joy as a Compass in the Chaos
Small Joys to Ground You:
• The first sip of tea in the morning.
• Sunlight catching on your windowsill.
• A song you can’t help but dance to.
Joy doesn’t need clarity—it just asks you to notice.
Mantras for the In-Between:
• “I don’t need to see the whole path to take the next step.”
• “This isn’t a void—it’s where I’m becoming.”
• “I am allowed to be unfinished.”
